Ah, Summer…Crabs, Interns, and Math?

Ah, Summer…Crabs, Interns, and Math?

July 22, 2013

One evening after work last week, we had a crab feast for some of our employees. Despite the heat, it was a great time. At one point, though, one of our managers noticed a few of our summer interns in a focused discussion while they scribbled on the table in between stains of crab juice. After they left, he snapped this picture:

When he shared this with me, I had several thoughts. First, why the hell didn't they eat those three extra crabs? Second, and more importantly, I was reminded what a good job we did recruiting this bunch of interns. They are focused thinkers, dedicated problem solvers, and committed learners. They have been true apprentices, eager to learn from each other and every Agilex employee that they encounter. I'm also happy that we've given them an environment where they are still doing math several weeks after they left campus. If I recall, I couldn't remember a single equation just hours after my final exam.

Following those exams one year, I also had a college summer internship. I spent the summer at AT&T in Basking Ridge, NJ. It wasn't too exciting. Other than seeing what it's like to work for a big company, I didn't get to do much. Assembling notes. Attending other people's meetings. The usual big company stuff. That's why I'm so glad that our interns are getting the chance to work on some interesting problems, learn some new technologies, and interact with brilliant people. Will they look back 30 years from now and say they didn't do much? I don't think so.

Some will say that they got to see how the government procurement process works up close. They might say that they learned how to develop mobile applications that access enterprise information systems. A few will recall that they learned how to use some cool web development tools. Some will remember their first exposure to how a fast-paced young company runs its back office. Others will remember it as the summer that they first touched really big data.

And maybe a few of them will remember that discussion over crabs when they first cracked the code on that hard problem that led to their first product startup...

Etc.

I had the pleasure last week of sitting-in for my colleague Roger Bradford for a discussion on Data Discovery on Information Management's DM Radio. It was fun to hear from folks at Deloitte, Tibco and Cambridge Semantics how other industries are exploiting data discovery. That said, some of the coolest approaches of all are being implemented in government. You can listen to our discussionHERE.